- Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
George Nooks (left) and Freddy McGregor clasp hands and sing 'One Love' to end bMobile Reggae Sunsplash 2006.

Teino Evans, Staff Reporter

With the bMobile Reggae Sunsplash over the organisers of the festival have been bombarded with reactions, some of which they agree with while others they deem as unfair.

However, according to Charles Campbell, Sunsplash's director of operations, despite falling short of projected turnout, they still delivered on most of their promises.

"We got about 50 per cent of our projected turnout, 30,000 persons over the four nights. We could speculate and whether we have any reasons now, we looked at various factors like the weather in Kingston on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday," Campbell said.

In further assessing other factors that may have contributed to their failure to meet projected turnout, Campbell said, outside of not being endorsed by the Jamaica Tourist Board, "because they didn't feel we would live up to the requirements or guidelines of the Coalition of Sponsors," thus impacting on the turnout of overseas patronage, "there was uncertainty about whether or not we could live up to our boast, but we have always said we had a five-year plan and we did not expect to make a profit in the first year, and our marketing and promotion got off to a late start."

Campbell, however, still holds firm to his belief that Reggae Sunsplash delivered what was promised.

"Did we deliver the things we promised? We said we would have the biggest car park and we did. We did not impact on the traffic, we took that traffic off the road quickly, we provided adequate security, we promised the best crowd control and we did, we promised the biggest venue in the Caribbean, we delivered, we promised sky boxes for an elevated view, we delivered, we promised a food court laid out with professional restaurateurs, we delivered, we promised the most sophisticated lighting system in the country, we delivered," Campbell said, continuing to list a string of deliveries made.

Extremely proud

Campbell says, regardless of some negative comments, "I am proud of my event, I am proud of my staff and I am proud of the sponsors. Sunsplash will be the standard bearer of our music and culture and we will be back next year and the year after and the year after and we will cement Sunsplash as the premier calendar event. This is about Jamaica reclaiming the festival and people coming here to get the real vibes. So the short answer is yes, we are here to stay. We will upgrade the standard of the event and make sure that in all our areas we were superior to any other event here and we lived up to those expectations."

Campbell says "Despite having accomplished most of the goals that we set out when we started to work on this project in September of last year, there is no room for complacency, I think we will have to improve on the venue, improve on the coordination between the two stages, improve on the organisation of internal ground transportation, on how we treat our local and international media, so there is lots of room for improvement."

He added that "We said at the beginning of this campaign that in our pre-planning we looked at what caused the demise of the first Sunsplash, a permanent venue, we solved that. We have a five-year lease with Richmond Estate, we settled on the dates so foreigners could plan nine months in advance for their leave, and the third issue was that of equity. The first Sunsplash suffered from this, but full credit to all our major sponsors who have solved our equity problems - Cable and Wireless, Riu Hotel, Wysinco, Air Jamaica and Air Jamaica Cargo, and Guardsman Group of Companies."

The first three sponsors, Campbell says, have already committed themselves for the five years.

As it relates to suggestions of moving the festival's date, Campbell says "To those who were suggesting that the festival be moved to Heroes Weekend or Thanksgiving, what it was in the beginning, there is more than enough room for two major summer festivals."

Campbell says "I think we have left Sunsplash 2006 with our motto still intact, 'I Can', the last four letters of the word Jamaican. So again, I'm very proud of my partners, Wayne Sinclair and Howard McIntosh, and together we did it. So individually, we said, 'I Can', but now as a collective we can now proudly say, 'We Did'."

Ra-Umi Alkebu-Lan, music journalist/ producer who attended the festival for three nights (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), has for the most part, endorsed what Campbell has said.

Perfect harmony

Alkebu-Lan says "Overall, for a festival that took a break, and with the changes and with more events competing, I think they did well and dem a guh get better."

"The venue was excellent, the staging, the lighting, excellent and the concept of two stages, wonderful. There was one stage with the Caribbean Sea as the backdrop; it good, it had a nice vibe bout it. Sunsplash this year, dem really bring back the whole vibes in terms of performances. Alpha Blondy did well, Junior Kelly, he gave one of his best performances locally, UB 40, Steel Pulse, Tanya Stephens, Maxi Priest - to me everybody did well, but those were the major ones for me. Even though the audience was small Friday night, it was an excellent show," he said.

Another person who attended Reggae Sunsplash, Andre, says "The festival was an enjoyable one, but as it is in Jamaica, nuff people not looking on the broader picture, because from di crowd small one night dem a seh it flop. But a di return an mi feel seh a next year wi a guh si di real competition, a next year di people dem fi judge di ting."